Analyzing Last Night’s Results

It turns out that Super Tuesday was pretty good for Mr. Romney, or at least as good as I predicted (accounting for delegates).  However, when it comes to perception, it seems as though Romney just can’t win.  Despite winning the most states (6) and the most delegates (212), Romney still can’t seem to close the deal, especially among the more conservative, tea-party base of the Republican party. 

What I find most interesting about most of the post-Super Tuesday chatter is that all this negative talk about Romney is occurring when his chief opponent (at least of the past couple weeks) performed poorly relative to expectations.  Sure, Mr. Santorum outperformed in Tennessee, and he even held Mr. Romney to only a one point win in Ohio, but in overall delegate count, he missed the projected mark by a whopping -28%.

It seems as though most of Rick Santorum’s losses were due to Newt Gingrich slightly outperforming, at least in terms of delegates.  Mr. Gingrich, on the whole, performed very poorly.  With the exception of his home state, which he had labeled a “must-win” for him to continue, Mr. Gingrich didn’t place better than third in any of the other contests. 

Which brings me to Dr. Paul; as projected, Ron Paul didn’t win any states last night and won exactly the number of delegates that was predicted.  He outperformed in a couple of states (Virginia and Vermont), but for the most part, Paul got in the double digits in barely any of the remaining contests.  Further, he severely underperformed in Alaska, a state that he had very high hopes for.  Results below:

It seems for the time being that neither of the four candidates have a real motive to get out of the race, and so it will go on.  To wrap up the nomination, a candidate must receive 1,144 delegates.  Mr. Romney currently has 401 delegates, and would need to win approximately 46% of the remaining delegates to seal the deal before the Tampa convention. 

Delegates	Romney	Santorum	Gingrich	Paul
Projected	212	110	57	21
Won	212	86	74	21
Error	0%	27.91%	22.97%	0%

Despite winning 51% of the delegates last night, that 46% will be made much more difficult when states aren’t voting together and Mr. Romney’s organization isn’t as useful as it was last night.  Still, unless someone drops out, Mitt Romney is still the candidate with the widest path towards becoming the GOP nominee.